


What Kylo Ren Hates

by yujacheong



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Self-Hatred, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-21
Updated: 2019-09-21
Packaged: 2020-10-17 21:14:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20627639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yujacheong/pseuds/yujacheong
Summary: On the things Kylo Ren hates.Kylo Ren hates using the Force.It wasn’t always that way. He’s Darth Vader’s grandson; he used to be proud of how good he was at it. He was the best; everyone said so.“Too bad you’re not the best anymore,” Ben Solo says. “She’sbetter than you.”“Shut up.”





	What Kylo Ren Hates

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lucymonster](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lucymonster/gifts).

Kylo Ren hates other people.

Although the First Order has been hunting the Resistance throughout the galaxy, they always seem to be three steps behind. So it’s yet another pointless daily briefing, and Kylo Ren can hardly contain his rage and frustration.

“Get… Out!” he snarls after his staff have finished their report. He is shaking.

As soon as the incompetents have vacated, he leaps to his feet and roars as he takes his lightsaber to the plasteel surface of the boardroom table.

“They don’t like you, you know,” Ben Solo says. “Maybe they’d do better work if, oh, I don’t know, they liked the man they were working for.”

Kylo Ren ignores that irritating voice and roars louder to drown it out. He moves onto the fourteen chairs, reducing each one to smoking metal slag one after another. Ben Solo was a fool, a sweet boy who’d been nice to other people in the hopes that they’d learn to like him in return. Except they never did. They were frightened of him instead. Yes, Ben Solo was a fool. Kylo Ren knows better; _he_ doesn’t bother trying to convince other people to like him.

“Er, sir…?” One analyst has returned. She tries not to look at the furniture in ruins. “Something’s just come in…”

*

Kylo Ren hates flying.

“ETA is 1400 hours,” the pilot says.

That’s another fifty minutes at least. Kylo Ren settles back into his comfortable passenger seat. He’s so glad that he doesn’t need to be the one flying himself to this remote, undisclosed location. The Supreme Leader has underlings for that.

“But you’re _good_ at flying,” Ben Solo says, angling his chin toward the pilot. “Better than _him_.”

That is probably true; Kylo Ren is one of the best pilots he knows. But he doesn’t enjoy flying.

Other people have different attitudes. Ben Solo’s dad had loved flying almost as much as he’d loved his son (quite possibly more), and his uncle had been a natural, using to the Force to accomplish feats no ordinary pilot was capable of. For them, flying had been a joy, and they’d wanted Ben Solo to love flying just as much as they did. To please them, he’d worked so hard.

It’d never been enough. No, _Ben Solo_ had never been enough.

And so, flying was drudgery to him, never delight. It’s still drudgery to Kylo Ren. Oh, and Kylo Ren hates hard work, too.

“Reversion to realspace,” the pilot announces, “in… Three… Two… One…”

*

Kylo Ren hates using the Force.

Is this a surprise? It wasn’t always this way. He’s Darth Vader’s grandson, after all; he used to be proud of how good he was at it. He was the best; everyone said so.

“Too bad you’re not the best anymore,” Ben Solo says. “_She’s_ better than you.”

“Shut up.”

“But she is. You know I’m right.”

“Shut. _Up._”

Now, though, it’s a different story. There is another in the galaxy who rivals his power, and Kylo Ren is terrified – terrified that she’s better, that he won’t measure up, that when the sabacc pot is full and his credits account is empty that his strength will fail him. Better, Kylo Ren thinks, not to try. Not to try means not having to risk failure.

If only that were an option here and now. Here now, he must use the Force. Yet when he reaches out, he senses no life, no activity. The Resistance _was_ in this remote, undisclosed location, that’s clear from the rubbish that’s been left behind, but no longer. They have left, and they are not coming back. The First Order is still playing catch up.

“Aw, don’t you hate it when that happens?” Ben Solo asks.

Kylo Ren roars and lashes out at the boy, slashing about with his lightsaber wildly in every direction until the very walls of the abandoned hideout threaten to fall in around his ears. The boy just snickers and says, “Gotta be careful; those ears stand out,” as he recedes back into the recesses of Kylo Ren’s own rebellious mind.

What Kylo Ren hates above all things is the person he was. He reminds himself that he isn’t Ben Solo anymore. It almost works.


End file.
